Disclosure: I worked for the Lamont campaign doing web design and production and some writing for the official blog (from 9/5/06 to 11/07/06).

Monday, July 31, 2006

Army of LieberYouth to Invade CT

The big-money rented Lieberman "ground game" is finally revealed.

According to the New Haven Register (hat tip Matt at MLN), Lieberman, having no in-state volunteer support whatseover, will be relying on an army of paid workers ($60 a day) to work the last week of the campaign. 4,000 of them.

And it turns out LSG, Tom Lindenfeld's emergency field-campaign-for-hire firm out of D.C., apparently doesn't know the state that well... and doesn't care to learn:

[Sean] Smith said they now have between 200 and 300 volunteers and paid staff, to canvass daily. Democratic workers in New Haven said the campaign told them it hopes to hire up to 4,000 workers by Election Day....

Meanwhile, New Haven Alderwoman Jacqueline James, D-3, said a young, mostly white staff from New Jersey was in charge of canvassing for Lieberman, and that hundreds of people were turned away July 22 after being told the campaign was looking for 16- to 21-year-olds.

The alderwoman estimated 56 young people were hired out of about 500 people who showed up, attracted by the $60 a day fee, or about $800 for the duration.

She said LGS does not know the demographics of the city at all. James suggested that they match inexperienced teens with more savvy workers, but this was rejected.

"They kept saying this is how we do it in New Jersey. I kept telling them, ‘This is not New Jersey,’" said James, who no longer volunteers for Lieberman.

An out-of-state field director running a completely paid GOTV campaign who won't listen to local officials who think they just might know their own state a little better - that's the state of the Lieberman campaign right now. They're hoping their corporate millions paying for an army of $60-a-day kids who don't care about Lieberman will be able to overcome the fact that they have no support on the ground in CT.

Perhaps his new party should be named "New Jersey for Lieberman."

posted by tparty at 11:09 AM

Comments:

hundreds of people were turned away July 22 after being told the campaign was looking for 16- to 21-year-olds

Huh? Does this make sense to anyone?? Sean Smith says, "the supervisor who was telling people that (about the age cutoff) is no longer with the campaign, if in fact he was telling people that." So Smith simultaneously says he knows who was saying it, then won't admit anyone was saying it.

I'd be curious to find out which is more: The $240,000 Lieberman is planning to spend on 4,000 paid GOTVers on election day or the total amount of donations Lieberman has received from Connecticut donors?

I'm pretty sure Lieberman has less than 4,000 donors from within CT, so it's conceivable Joe will be spending more money on that one day than he's raised in-state from individual donors all campaign.

Lieberman's paid "volunteers" in Stamford are not mostly white. All of the canvassers I've seen for Lieberman here are African-American. And all of the LieberStaffer kids at the Temptations concert that I saw on Saturday night (about 40 of them at least) were all African-American.

I would not crow about this as a sign of weakness. Seriously. Bodies on the ground aren't everything in a campaign, but they do matter.

Ya know, I was (and still am) a HUGE supporter of Howard Dean during both his Presidential campaign as well as his current stint as DNC chair.

HOWEVER, I and other Dean supporters have to admit that the so-called "perfect storm" strategy three years ago was pretty much a complete disaster. Basically, the Dean campaign bussed several thousand out-of-state volunteers into Iowa, gave them orange hats and sent them out to knock on doors. It's my understanding that it completely backfired--not only did the out-of-staters not have a clue what they were doing or where anything was, but they scared the bejesus out of the locals.

Lieberman's case sounds similar--the chief difference being that these kids are being paid, so they don't even have the sheer enthusiasm that Dean's volunteers had.

Yeah, $60/day isn't all that great, but if you have some time to spare and have been looking for a way to help the Lamont* campaign, this might be it!

*I doubt there will be much supervision. Take your money and go sit in a bookstore. It's hot out, you know. Or you can follow the list while acting like an ass. No one will see the difference between you acting like an ass and anyone else associated with Joe anyway.

He should be so lucky to have the kind of streak we have here. Democrats run more than half of New Jersey's towns, more than half its counties, the state Assembly, the State Senate, and the Governor's office. Our House delegation is majority Democratic and our two Senate seats are both held by Democrats.

Maybe next time you won't understimate the awesome [drawing] canvassing power of the Garden State?

Charles Gaba: Yeah -- though what Lieberman's trying is a bit more targeted. He's hoping that none of the folks whose doors get knocked on by the out-of-townies ever twig to the fact that these are rented kids from out of state. At least the orange-capped Deanistas did most of the Storm on their own dime!

Last week I saw three "kids" hanging around, near the New Haven Lawn Club, wearing Lieberman tshirts - I told them when they're old enough they can fight in Lieberman's Iraq war - unless they persuade their parents to vote for Lamont...

I worked briefly on Tom Daschle's reelection campaign in South Dakota. I was the only native South Dakotan on the damned staff in the local office where I volunteered. Every paid employee was from out of state.

As soon as I saw that, I knew that his campaign was totally out of touch and totally doomed. Looks like Lieberman's making the same boneheaded mistakes.